Archive for the ‘News – General’ Category
September 1st, 2010 | Author: J.W. Watts
The work day ends, only to give way to a new one tomorrow. I’ve put in all I can stand today, been hitting it hard since about 8am today making sure everything is in tune and on time (musician joke) for the rest of the week, especially since we’re moving into a holiday weekend. I will still be posting the next comic in the series on Friday to kick off the Labor Day weekend.
I want thank everyone so far who has been keeping up with voting in the web comic top lists. We’re doing good so far but still lacking greatly in votes, and so far Cubicle101 still has not broken the top 100 which means a lot of you out there still have not voted today and will still need to vote again tomorrow to kick up the rankings. I want to remind everyone again that Cubicle101′s success depends not only myself but all of you fans and readers out there.
Keep up the voting and remember to pass the comic along to others who might enjoy it. Make sure they do the same in addition to voting when they visit. This comic stays online and free because of ad revenue and user traffic. Without those two, this website WILL go offline, and for good. I don’t want that to happen because I enjoy making the comic and I enjoy the fact that others out there like it as well.
That’s all for today, stay tooned !!!!
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September 1st, 2010 | Author: J.W. Watts
AS STATED IN THE LAST POST, THE WEB COMIC TOP LIST STATS HAVE BEEN RESET. I NEED EVERYONE VOTING FROM EVERY POSSIBLE MACHINE THEY CAN FIND FOR THE NEXT 24-48 HOURS. RIGHT NOW IT WILL TAKE ALL OF 30-40 VOTES TO PUT CUBICLE101 ON THE FRONT PAGE IN PLAIN VIEW OF THOUSANDS OF WEB COMIC READERS. VOTE NOW, VOTE OFTEN, VOTE EVEN IF YOU DON’T READ OR LIKE THE COMIC.
Now, with that out of the way, the next comic has been posted and work continues on future installments. Not much else to update on right now as I’ve not finished my coffee therefore my brain isn’t quite up to speed just yet. Will post more later, stay tooned !!!
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE
August 31st, 2010 | Author: J.W. Watts
Greetings cubicle monkeys. This post is a little late and I’m sure at least half of you are probably walking out the door and headed home for the day. Anywhosits, wanted to give everyone an update anyway as I have been busting my ass all day on two separate projects. One being the comic which is a no-brainer, and the second being something that’s become somewhat of a pet project that feeds off of one of my biggest pet peeves.
I’m not going to go into any details on it as I want everyone to be able to see it for themselves and draw their own conclusions. I personally have a feeling it’s going to offend a great many people, and those are the people I’m targeting. More on that once it’s been posted. I have but one frame to finish out which is being held up by a certain someone*cough*Kris*cough*cough*, who is supposed to be shooting a picture for the final frame of this particular strip.
All that aside, the next comic will be posted tomorrow morning on schedule. I’m not sure what my problem was yesterday but I just could not shake that feeling of being run down. I was actually worried I might be coming down with something as the clerk at the beer store I frequent is sick, as well as my drummers daughters after school sitter. Needless to say I’ve been popping extra vitamin C and keeping the hand sanitizer close by. I hate being sick, but the only thing I hate worse than that is being sick during the summer time.
That’s all for now. I have some playing to do as my drummer went out and got extra Wii controllers with the motion censor plus attachments. We’ve dedicated tonight as Wii night, during which both myself and my drummer are probably going to get our clocks cleaned by his 10 year old daughter.
Also, as a reminder, tomorrow or the next day the web comic top lists are going to have the voting stats reset. This means the call to arms is going to hit very soon and I need EVERYONE voting. The first 48 hours of voting make all the difference in rankings and exposure. Remember you can vote once per machine/device, per network. That means if you have a home network with multiple computers, you can only vote from one of them as your routers IP is what gets logged as having voted. The same goes for businesses. So, keep that in mind. You can vote once from home, once from work, and if you have an internet capable phone you can vote once from there too.
I’ll let everyone know when to start hitting it hard and heavy. Just keep the votes coming. That’s all for now, stay tooned!!!
August 30th, 2010 | Author: J.W. Watts
“UGH” is about the only word that comes to mind. No one likes Mondays, least of all me, but for some reason today I just cannot get into a productive mode to save my life. Everything I’ve done today seems like it’s tainted with demotivation and I just can not shake it. Don’t get me wrong, I still got plenty of work on the upcoming comics done but it just seems like no matter how much work I put into anything today, everything is out of place or skewed.
I suppose I could blame stress, lord knows I’ve got enough of that going on to begin with, but that seems too easy a scapegoat. Guess I’ll just chalk it up to a case of the lazy-ass and hope tomorrow shines a little brighter.
I had planned on putting the next comic online today, but I ended up hitting a roadblock earlier with the comic that follows it so I’m going to put it off until Wednesday. That will give me time to catch up and get back on schedule again, and hopefully shake off this funk I’m in. That’s all for today, will update again tomorrow and possibly post an unrelated comic which I’ve been working on.
Stay Tooned!!!
August 24th, 2010 | Author: J.W. Watts
Cubicle monkeys, I do believe we are now witnessing what will be the fall of Steve Jobs and the iPhone. Apple has once again stirred up a hornets nest with news yesterday that it has filed for patents on the iPhone and iPod that will not only make it illegal to jailbreak the devices but will also allow for Apple to have unprecedented back door access to every iPhone/iPod Touch sold (for now only in the US but will most likely translate to other markets). If you want to read the contents of the patent that was filed you can find it HERE.
So what could be so bad about this you ask? CNet’s Steven Musil did a nice write up on the subject so I’ll just pull from his post and you can let your imagination run wild.
The company has applied for a patent, titled “Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device,” that covers a series of security measures to automatically protect devices from thieves and other “unauthorized users.” Unauthorized users apparently applies to those who engage in jailbreaking, which allows devices to run apps not approved by the company producing the operating system–such as Apple, the main target of such bypasses.
Now, no matter where you stand on the jailbreaking/carrier unlocking debate, as an opener it doesn’t sound all that bad. Then the article continues…
The application also describes a variety of measures that could be used to help identify the unauthorized user, including the activation of a camera that could capture and geotag the device’s surroundings, and perhaps current user, and transmit that information to a remote device:
In some embodiments, an unauthorized user can be detected by comparing the identity of the current user to the identities of authorized users of the electronic device. For example, a photograph of the current user can be taken, a recording of the current user’s voice can be recorded, the heartbeat of the current user can be recorded, or any combination of the above. The photograph, recording, or heartbeat can be compared, respectively, to a photograph, recording, or heartbeat of authorized users of the electronic device to determine whether they match. If they do not match, the current user can be detected as an unauthorized user.
So let me get this straight. Not only do you want to make it illegal for me to do what I want with a $600 phone I paid for, but to further add insult to injury you want patent protection to now SPY ON ME at will??!! Have you lost your @#$%ing mind??!! This violates our constitutional rights in so many ways I can’t even begin to list them right now to say the least. I personally say there is no way this will be allowed, and if it is allowed I’ll be bashing my iPhone with a ball-peen hammer and sending it’s mangled carcass directly back to Steve Jobs himself. I would recommend all iPhone owners follow suit, that is unless you just like randomly being profiled and spied on by the likes of Apple and AT&T.
I seriously do not understand this thought paradigm that Apple has recently taken. It’s obvious that Apples’ previously successful business model of keeping everything secretive and closed from outside developers, due to it’s small yet loyal customer base, is no longer viable in the new more popular Apple that in recent history has been gaining ever more market share and edging in on the profits of the big boys like Microsoft and Google. Personally, if I were on the Apple board I would seriously have to start asking myself if Steve Jobs is still good for the company with the direction he’s trying to take.
At some point Apple has got to come to terms that not a single technology company to date has ever been able to keep everything they develop completely closed off and under complete control and still survive as a business. Once you develop something and you put it into the consumer arena, just let it go man, because it’s gone. People are going to do things with these devices that you never intended, it’s called development. You can’t get pissy because someone else thought of something you didn’t, and without your expressed permission.
If your hardware and software require THAT much control, then don’t sell them, rent or lease them. When you maintain the ownership of the product you have complete control of who, what, when, where, and how it will be used. Of course we all know what Steve’s thinking, “I’ll just change the user agreement to give me legal grounds to force my will on the end user”, the only problem with that is eventually you will have to change the user agreement to state that the end user maintains no ownership of the device or the software on it after they’ve paid out up to $600 to get the phone. How many people do you think are going to jump on that wagon?
The arguments could go on and on but at this point I think it’s best to see where all of this goes before we start really debating it. Needless to say this is going to be an issue that I and many others will be watching closely as more develops. And with that, it’s back to the drawing board.